Fast by martyr’s kin a conspiracy : Bihar minister

PATNA: The ruling JD(U), it seems, is a divided house and its ministers are not ready to learn any lesson after rural works department minister Bhim Singh’s controversial remarks (People join Army to get martyred) about the Bihar martyrs killed in an ambush along the LoC in the Poonch sector in Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday.

On Saturday, another Bihar minister courted controversy by his trivializing remarks on the fast by the family members of Vijay Kumar Rai, one of the four martyred Army jawans of Bihar, at their native village AnandpurThekaha village under Bihta block of Patna district, demanding that Army chief Gen Bikram Singh should visit them and assure the family that Rai’s killing would be avenged. Though the family ended the fast on Saturday, but not before agriculture minister Narendra Singh described it as engineered under a “political conspiracy”.

“The protest fast by the family members of one of the Army martyrs in their village is being done under a political conspiracy. They have been made to sit on dharna and fast by political parties,” said Narendra, when mediapersons contacted him for his quotes on the series of developments since the cremation of the four martyrs on Thursday. Earlier, on Friday, the efforts of JD(U) Patliputra MP Ranjan Yadav to convince the family against holding the fast had failed. Yadav had also faced the villagers’ ire.